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To revive Portland, officials seek to ban public drug use

nytimes.com

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Re: To revive Portland, officials seek to ban public drug use

#961

Post by eloisius »

NoGravitas wrote: post #806
eloisius wrote: post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What needs to happen for decriminalization to work is much better social support for addicts, including safe use sites staffed with nurses, free health care for addicts including detox hospitalization and substance abuse treatments, social housing including housing specifically for recovering addicts and active addicts How many productive members of society does it take to support each drug addict? Should there be…

"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. "

So “old book says so”?

Re: To revive Portland, officials seek to ban public drug use

#962

Post by cscurmudgeon »

Kim_Bruning wrote: post #254
cscurmudgeon wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a strong argument as it doesn't consider all aspects. 1. Public drunkness is still a problem 2. Drunk driving still kills a lot of people. Legalization of alcohol doesn't help.

History shows that making it illegal didn't work either.

Execution matters. See Singapore.

Re: To revive Portland, officials seek to ban public drug use

#963

Post by hedora »

buzzert wrote: post #954
hedora wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sociologists recently performed a large multi-region study of homelessness, drug use, etc. It turns out that there’s no real correlation between having drug addicts on the streets and the level of drug use in the area or even mental illness. Unemployment doesn’t even predict homelessness, and neither does weather, or laws pertaining to the homeless. By far, the best predictor is housing affordability and availability…

Interestingly, progressive cities also have the most expensive housing.

They generally have incredibly severe homeless problems, which is ironic, since they spend so much money on homeless aid programs, affordable housing (not more housing) initiatives, etc.

I think that partially motivated the study. Climate also doesn’t seem to matter, neither does hiring more police, or really anything politicians have funded in the last decade.

Re: To revive Portland, officials seek to ban public drug use

#964

Post by hedora »

cjwilliams wrote: post #633
hedora wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sociologists recently performed a large multi-region study of homelessness, drug use, etc. It turns out that there’s no real correlation between having drug addicts on the streets and the level of drug use in the area or even mental illness. Unemployment doesn’t even predict homelessness, and neither does weather, or laws pertaining to the homeless. By far, the best predictor is housing affordability and availability…

I know this sounds absurd, but I don't think social studies on such politically hot issues can be trusted outright. Given the state of university social science departments, can you imagine the cost of publishing something that supported ‘war on drugs’ style policy. Im not saying your study is bogus, just that Ive learned to be circumspect around research into such topics. Because often such academics are also activi…

I get your sentiment, but note that this study goes even farther to piss off anti-war on drugs activists:

It says it doesn’t matter either way, so they are wrong (if they win, it won’t help), but also irrelevant.

Re: To revive Portland, officials seek to ban public drug use

#965

Post by lazyasciiart »

n8cpdx wrote: post #931
lazyasciiart wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Decriminalizing test kits that let you identify the presence of fentanyl in other drugs would be a great start - but those are instead illegal and classified as “paraphernalia”.

That law was already fixed in Portland (and the rest of Oregon). Test strips are still classified as paraphernalia, but there’s a carve out making them legal now. https://olis.oregonlegislature.gov/liz/2023R1/Measures/Analy...

Oh, nice. Effective August 2023.

Re: To revive Portland, officials seek to ban public drug use

#966

Post by lazyasciiart »

hatefulmoron wrote: post #619
lazyasciiart wrote: post #605

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What circumstance? The clamor to use prison time as a solution to homelessness and drug use?

You know what thread we're in, right? You know what circumstances I'm referring to..

Yes, but you appear not to understand my response.

Re: To revive Portland, officials seek to ban public drug use

#967

Post by runarberg »

eloisius wrote: post #961
NoGravitas wrote: post #806

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. "

So “old book says so”?

As well as old bronze lady:

“Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Re: To revive Portland, officials seek to ban public drug use

#968

Post by overgard »

ImJamal wrote: post #534
overgard wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering that alcohol is, by far, the most dangerous drug and it's completely legal, I think there's something to be said for your point. I gotta say though, it's sort of complicated when you're talking about legalizing things that are already legal as prescription drugs (like opiates and benzos). Alcohol is different because it doesn't really have any medical use outside of disinfecting things (it's fairly terrib…

Alcohol is only more dangerous because so many more people use alcohol over hard drugs. When you look at the per capita rate, hard drugs kill more people. Another poster did the math here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38608506

Alcohol withdrawal is potentially much more dangerous than withdrawal from most other substances. Withdrawal is always miserable of course, but seizures, blood pressure, elevated pulse, hallucinations, etc. can be fatal in the case of alcohol without treatment. You also have to consider that the first product that alcohol is metabolized into, acetaldehyde, is extremely toxic, attacking multiple organs and also causing lovely things like dna damage.

The thing about most (not all) illegal drugs is most of them have some sort of positive usage outside of abuse. Opiates can be effective for pain, benzodiazepines for acute anxiety, stimulants for ADHD or narcolepsy, etc. Alcohol despite its useful social role (I'm not telling you all to be tee-totallers) is basically just a poison that has a small handful of short term nice effects and a long tail of effects that are a disaster.

Anyway, I question the math in the other post about heroin because it's essentially ignoring the dangers of a bad supply. People do safely take other (prescribed) opiates safely. I imagine that alcohol would be a lot more dangerous if we were back in prohibition times with like bath tub gin.

Re: To revive Portland, officials seek to ban public drug use

#969

Post by uoaei »

local_crmdgeon wrote: post #840
uoaei wrote: post #631

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Harm reduction and rehab still only treats the symptom, not the cause. The cause is financial instability brought on by insecurity in housing, food access, etc. It's an issue of human dignity in the economic sphere that drives people to such depths, not recreation. Unfortunately we still have a large portion of the population who believe that one must deserve to live a dignified life, and then apply all sorts of cave…

"We have to fix every single problem to prevent people from smoking meth in public." No we don't. This wasn't a problem 10 years ago. This isn't a problem in much, much poorer countries. This isn't a problem in fucking Houston or Tampa or NYC or Boston. I get that you want to overthrow Capitalism, but the rest of us want to live a normal life without junkies shitting on our stairs

I'm not really a revolutionary about it, but those living "normal" lives are far from normal if they aren't stressed about the day-to-day.

It would be nice if life wasn't so stressful all the time for so many people. Look at all the wild drivers, the lack of camaraderie in basic everyday life interactions, you can point to all manner of social ills and if you empathize with those who are struggling to get by -- which is most people according to every statistic released in the last 6 years about it -- you would easily make the connection between worrying about not having a bed and enough food and the kinds of shitty behavior people end up enacting.

Those cities don't have a problem with homelessness because their cities either suck to live outside in the winter or suck to live outside in the summer.

You'll also note the high proportions allocated to police in every city budget (NYC cops get something like $5 billion per year!). The difference between some cities and others is primarily the level of controls they put on police re: homeless people because of progressive policies. The cities with hardline positions look better because the homeless are pushed out, not because the homeless find homes there.

Re: To revive Portland, officials seek to ban public drug use

#970

Post by oneshtein »

alexey-salmin wrote: post #906
oneshtein wrote: post #715

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is COVID really any one person's fault, even if we narrow it down to a specific patient 0? COVID19 was leaked from "Vector" BSL4 lab in Russia. It's leaked, because first responders broke doors (to check for fire) and stole equipment from BSL4 lab without any protective equipment, then China special police, which was in same city for training with Russians, captured the virus and returned back to China. Then Russia…

As someone who spent most of my life in Novosibirsk I was amused to see the Vector lab mentioned in this context. Some googling reveals that indeed there was an explosion in the facility in September 2019. I still think that this theory is way too convoluted to be true (chinese secret police and stuff), but an entertaining read nevertheless. I wasn't aware of either the explosion or the covid leak allegations.

> (chinese secret police and stuff),

As typical Russian, you started with FUD. Luckily for us, these news are stored to the archive:

http://web.archive.org/web/20191011162034/https://www.nsktv....

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